Boudreau Pipeline Corp.

Boudreau Pipeline’s customers, employees and vendors are crucial to its 20 years of success.

By Jim Harris

Boudreau Pipeline Corp.’s relationships with its vendors, customers and employees have allowed the company to thrive for the past 20 years.

“I think focusing on people is the biggest reason for our success,” President Alan Boudreau says. “We understand that relationships are the most important thing in our business, and maintaining those relationships is our biggest motivator.”

Boudreau traces his construction experience back to 1996 when he purchased his first backhoe and started a company called A&B Equipment. Boudreau and his wife Christie ran the business out of their home and Boudreau served as its owner-operator.

After a year of working on his own, one of Boudreau’s clients asked him to bid on a pipeline project. Although he was not experienced with pipeline work at the time, he was awarded the project. This led to the launch of Boudreau Pipeline Corp. and the hiring of his first employee, Abel Macias, who still works with the company as a foreman. A few other employees have worked for the company for as long as 17 years, he notes.

The Corona, Calif.-based company last year was recognized as one of the top workplaces in Riverside and San Bernardino, Calif., counties by the Press-Enterprise newspaper. “That says it all,” Boudreau says of the award. “We are not a pipeline company, we are a people company.”

Vice President of Operations Dave Reynolds, who has worked with the company for 13 years, credits the award to the company’s positive internal culture. “We are constantly training and educating our team members on ways to demonstrate and/or improve their ‘can-do attitude,’ while maintaining our ethical principles of treating one another with mutual respect, holding each other accountable and empowering us to communicate with one another regardless of department or responsibility,” he says.

Boudreau Pipeline’s positive culture extends to its suppliers, which include S&J Supply. S&J was the Boudreau Pipeline’s first supplier and still works with the company. “We work with a tight group of suppliers that we look at as our partners, and pay them even before we get paid,” Boudreau says. “Our customers look at us the same way; they know we are looking out for them and understand what their needs are.”

Project Experience

Boudreau Pipeline’s customers include residential developers and homebuilders such as The New Home Company, Cal Atlantic and Brandywine Homes. The company also works as a subcontractor to major commercial and industrial general contractors and developers, including Hillwood Development Company, Oltmans Construction and Snyder Langston LP. More than 95 percent of the company’s work comes from repeat customers, Boudreau adds.

Boudreau Pipeline specializes in underground utility work including water, sewer and storm drain installation. The company serves Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Ventura Counties. It is ranked among the nation’s Top 600 specialty contractors by Engineering News-Record, which also ranked it No. 14 among utility contractors in 2016.

The company’s recent projects include a $6 million contract for infrastructure work at the 205-acre Goodman Commerce Center in Eastvale, Calif. The retail and commercial park includes a 1 million square-foot Amazon.com fulfillment center. A second, 2.8-million square foot three-story fulfillment center for Amazon is under construction. Boudreau Pipeline’s work at the Goodman Commerce Center started in 2015 and concluded earlier this year.

Recent examples of Boudreau Pipeline’s residential work include a $6 million infrastructure contract at a 1,400-lot master-planned community in Corona.

Training the Future

Boudreau Pipeline is looking toward the future, which could include potential expansion to the Dallas region, where many of its clients are based.

The company is making an effort to train staff to perform its current and future projects. “There’s a lot of work out there and we lost a lot of tradesmen during the [Great Recession] who haven’t come back, so we have a labor issue,” Boudreau says.

In January, the company hired a full-time training director and purchased an excavator simulator. Plans are also underway to develop a dedicated training facility and partner with local schools and industry associations.

“Our thought is that we need to start growing our own pipe layers, laborers and operators and invest in our own team,” he adds. “We are taking laborers with no pipeline experience and training them on the job.”

Celebrating Through Giving

Boudreau Pipeline Corp. is marking its 20th anniversary by raising a total of $20,000 for charity. Each quarter, the company is raising funds for a different organization. These are: Susan G. Komen For The Cure; Working Wardrobes, a nonprofit organization providing job interview clothing for veterans and others; the Loma Linda Children’s Hospital; and Donor’s Choose, an online crowdfunding site used by teachers to fund classroom projects.

The second-quarter giving project, benefitting Working Wardrobes, included an open house event at the company’s Corona, Calif., headquarters. “A big part of what we do here is to give back to the community,” founder and president Alan Boudreau says.